Today on the way to an interview we saw something we’d only heard about: the pig patrol. Dili, it seems, has always been overrun with pigs. In a city with refugee camps and limited sanitation facilities, they presented a public health disaster. Enough was enough, decreed the government, and mobile slaughter units were created to round up and kills the pigs on sight. It was a disturbing sight, workers dressed all in yellow leapt from the back of a pick-up truck with long metal spears. Mortally (and inhumanely) wounded the pig so it would die (eventually), tossed it in the back of the truck and moved on. The whole process took approximately 40 seconds, and for a moment, just a moment, I got a glimpse of the brutality that lays below the surface in East Timor. It can become all too easy to kill, it seems, and there have been times in the history of every country, where human life has not been much more valuable that than poor pig’s.
Brie O’Keefe
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